Rest Well, Anya

I have this week’s edition of Novaya gazeta in front of me. The cover is all black with a center photo of Anna Politkovskaya. Above the photo it simply says “Anya.” There is a short editorial at the bottom of the page. It begins, “She was beautiful. She only became more beautiful with age. Do you know why? At first we receive our face from God unfinished, and then we make it ourselves. That is how we live. Still they say, in maturity the soul begins to appear on the face. Her soul was beautiful.” Anna Politkovskaya’s murder has sent shockwaves not only across the Russian body politic, but the world. Almost every newspaper in Moscow had her murder as their cover story. Many of Russia’s state owned television channels heaped praise on Politkovskaya. They may have ignored her in life, but her tragic death couldn’t be so easily swept under the rug. Even NTV quickly reported the murder as political. Its evening Sunday talk show Voskresenyi vecher devoted a half an hour of its programming to discuss the murder, speculated on who committed it, and the threat it poses to the Russian press. Suggestions ranged from the Putin administration, nationalists and fascists, and Razman Kadyrov, the young Prime Minister of Chechnya and Putin proxy.It is difficult to capture the Politkovskaya’s courage in words. She was a rare breed of journalist in Russia, who braved and eventually gave her own life to report on human rights violations in Chechnya and her native Russia. Internationally known, she has three books in English: A Small Corner in Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya(2003), A Dirty War (2004), and Putin’s Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy (2005). The latter was not published in Russia because of its harsh criticism of the Putin’s rule. What separates her books from most journalistic accounts is not the acerbic words she uses to condemn those who don’t hesitate to stomp on humanity; it is the deep humanism that pervades her prose. While violence may dehumanize her subjects, often to a bloody pulp, she resurrects them to their full humanity. This is an art in any language let alone in Russian journalism where the cost for telling the truth has now become the lives of 42 journalists since 1992.Details of her murder are brutal. On Saturday afternoon Politkovskaya was returning from Ramstore, a Moscow supermarket chain. She brought up two bags of groceries to her apartment and went down to fetch the remaining three bags. As she stepped out the elevator, the killer shot her four times. Twice in the heart. Once in the shoulder. Though the first two killed her instantly, the shooter let one final bullet into her head. Her neighbors didn’t hear anything because the killer used an Izh pistol with a silencer. He dropped the pistol at the scene. The weapon had its serial number filed off. A neighbor discovered Politkovskaya’s body five minutes later at 4:15 pm. Needless to say, the murder was a professional hit.The apartment building surveillance cameras captured the shooter but only from the back. It is being compared to video from the Ramstore cameras in hopes to getting his identity. The killer was a male, 180 cm tall in dark clothes. Police were able to compose a sketch from witnesses from a nearby pharmacy. There is talk that he was aided by a female.There is no doubt that Politkovskaya’s work was the reason for her death. More than anyone she exposed Russian terror, either direct or by proxy, in Chechnya. She dared to speak when everyone else was silent. She was an opera singer among the tone deaf. Her bravery poured out of the last letters she wrote. The last article she published in Novaya gazeta was titled “Vindictive Collusion” (No. 74, 28 September) she wrote, according to Kommersant,

“Most of the followers of Kadyrov, Yamadaev and Kakiev are fighting on the side of the federal forces to avoid blood vengeance or to take vengeance,” she wrote. “Members of those divisions are involved in the same kidnappings and commit torture and murder. Their cruelty has long been comparable to the death squads’ of Russian officers in the special services, but their activities are more selective.” Specific cases of kidnapping, with the names of those she considered their perpetrators—fighters and heads of the law enforcement structures controlled by Ramzan Kadyrov, were given in the article.

It is this type of reporting that makes many think that Politkovskaya’s murder is connected to, if not was directly ordered by, Ramzan Kadyrov. The Chechen Prime Minister, of course, denied any connection to the murder stating, “Despite not always objective character of Anna Politkovskaya’s materials about Chechnya, I sincerely and humanly feel sorry for the journalist,” adding “to suppose [Chechen involvement] without any reason and serious proof means to argue at the level of rumors and gossips; it does not adorn neither the press nor politicians.” Kadyrov’s 30th birthday this past weekend was met with much fanfare. He opened the new Chechen airport, though it hasn’t been cleared for commercial travel. According to Novaya gazeta, he also used Chechen police paychecks to buy a $450,000 Ferrari. Many newspapers are also declaring that turning 30 has opened his path to the Chechen presidency. Putin remained silent until the pressure for him to speak became too much. In a televised statement made today (some say three days too late), he promised that “all necessary efforts will be made for an objective investigation into the tragic death,” calling the murder “an unacceptable crime that cannot go unpunished.” Hopefully this statement is enough to stir the Russian police out of complacency.Politkovskaya’s enemies were many. Kommersant and Izvestiia are now reporting there are three main theories to her murder. One is a conspiracy by opponents of Kadyrov and Putin. The idea is that Politkovskaya’s murder would undermine both Putin’s and Kadyrov’s authority. The conspiracy involves Boris Berezovsky as the mastermind. The second is that corrupt police officers from the Siberian city of Nizhnvartovsk had the journalist murdered because her investigation of their brutality in 2001 led to their imprisonment. Finally, there is the theory that influential Chechens, most likely connected to Kadyrov, had her killed in revenge from her reporting on Chechnya. Lesser theories include the involvement of fascists, nationalists, and others who have been angered by her muckraking reporting and polemical positions. Given the Russian propensity for conspiracy theories, I’m sure the Jews will surface as potential culprits at some point. As for real progress on the killing, the business daily reports that little headway has been made. Anna Politkovskaya was buried today in Troekurovskoe Cemetery. Two thousand people attended. Her reporting angered many but that’s what good journalism is supposed to do. Many loved her and her work despite her detractors. Hundreds of people have left flowers at her Moscow apartment. Others are demanding that the Russian government make the case a priority. Her newspaper, Novaya gazeta has offered a $1 million reward for information leading to the killer’s capture. In her final interview with Radio Svobodna on September 28, Politkovskaya had one wish: “Personally I only have one dream for Kadyrov’s birthday: I dream of him someday sitting in the dock, in a trial that meets the strictest legal standards, with all of his crimes listed and investigated.” If that day ever comes, it will because of all the work she did. Rest well, Anya.

From Ukraine to Turkmenistan, 46 journalists have been murdered in the former Soviet states over the past 15 years, with 90 percent of the cases unsolved, according to CPJ research. The message from the authorities has been clear: When it comes to journalists, you can get away with murder. This has had the intended chilling effect on media coverage of sensitive issues of corruption, organized crime, human rights violations, and abuse of power in countries such as Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan, CPJ research shows.

Shielded by institutional secrecy, authorities make little effort to track down the killers. CPJ has documented case after case in Europe and Central Asia where investigators ignore journalism as a motive. Instead, they classify the killings as common crimes and label professional assassins “hooligans.” Prosecutors open and suspend investigations, rarely informing victims’ relatives and colleagues, who have to scramble for information or do their own forensic investigation. Detectives sometimes fail to study the dead journalist’s notebooks, computers, and tape recorders. They fail to interview all witnesses, then ignore the testimony of those they do interview. Investigations are closed “for lack of suspects” despite glaring evidence to the contrary.

Among those nations listed above, Russia is characterized as “the worst record of impunity among countries in the region” and “the third deadliest country for journalists worldwide.” “Only Iraq, and Algeria when it was riven by civil war, outrank it,” the report reads. The highest profile killing of a journalist in Russia in 2006 was, of course, Novaya gazeta investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya.

The condemnation of Russia didn’t stop at official figures. In the report’s introduction, written by CPJ executive directorJoel Simon, Putin was lumped with Hugo Chavez (the Latin American section is almost solely dedicated to him) as representatives of “a generation of sophisticated, elected leaders who have created a legal framework to control, intimidate, and censor the news media.” Simon even posits a new term for the Putins and Chavezs of the world: democratators.

The rise of “democratators”—popularly elected autocrats—is alarming because it represents a new model for government control of the press. These leaders stand for election and express rhetorical support for democratic institutions while using measures such as punitive tax audits, manipulation of government advertising, and sweeping content restrictions to control the news media. The democratators tolerate the fa?ade of democracy—a free press, opposition political parties, an independent judiciary—while gutting it from within.

Related

Dmitri Minaev, who runs the Russia history blog De Rebus Antiquis Et Novis, submitted the following article about the strange incident involving a human rights group called Froda and their run in with the FSB in Novorossiysk.The article is a compilation to two posts Minaev did on the story.I’ve demarcated the break between the posts below.

I should note that this incident was followed by a raid on Institute of War and Peace Reporting by North Ossetian police in Vladkavkaz.There is no direct connection whatsoever between the two incidents except to say, as Valery Dzutsev, IWPR’s North Caucasus coordinator, put it to the Moscow Times, “The problems with the authorities began a month after the NGO law went into effect last April.”

You can draw your own conclusions.

In the meantime, I present Dmitri Minaev’s article on the incident in Novorossiysk.—Sean

Attack on Civil Rights?

By Dmitri Minaev

I found this shocking news by serendipity, it could have passed by totally unnoticed:

Nine members of Froda, a group that campaigns for ethnic minority rights, were found guilty of holding an illegal meeting and fined after they had tea with two German students visiting a friend in the southern city of Novorossiysk. … “We were told that, under the new law, any meeting of two or more people with the purpose of discussing publicly important issues had to be sanctioned by the local administration three days in advance,” Mrs. Karastelyova said.

More details in The Telegraph. Frankly, the story is so weird even for Russia, that I would like to find more information before posting this bit, but the same weirdness of the event gives me creeps so huge that I just can’t put it aside.

It seems to be a very strange organization, this Froda. They don’t have a web-site. They are not mentioned anywhere in the Internet, with two exceptions: the article from The Telegraph (reproduced in a number of other newspapers) and the 2004 report on human rights practices in Russia. The more I read, the more I suspect that there is something wrong with the whole story. Or, at least, I hope there is.

********

Unfortunately, I was wrong. The story was not fake. The newspaper Noviye Izvestiyawrites (article in Russian) that on January 23, a group of human rights activists from Novorossiysk and students of local universities were meeting their guests from Germany in a local children’s art school. The German businessmen visited an exhibition of children’s drawings and they went to a room where a table was set for them all. An interpreter and an operator of a local TV channel were also present. The visitors planned to discuss the idea to spread tolerance towards ethnical minorities with posters and friendly football matches. At this moment, a group of 15 men dressed in the police uniform came in. The group was led by an FSB lieutenant colonel Dmitri Fedorenko. The group also included Anatoly Nilov, head of the culture department of Novorossiysk administration. They checked the documents of everyone present in the room. When asked what were the legal pretexts, they did not give an answer. Some time later, one of the policemen said that they should have notified the city administration of the planned meeting. The participants referred to the Constitution, but major Ovcharenko said that the meeting was not sanctioned by the authorities and falls under the law on demonstrations, rallies and picketing. The Germans consulted the embassy and decided to leave Russia, even though they had all documents and visas.

The authorities say that it was a usual raid of the immigration service and that the visit to the art school was not planned in advance, that it happened by chance.

Anyway, some days ago the human rights activists were officially accused of holding the meeting without notifying the authorities in advance. The participants and the principal of the school (Marina Dubrovina, Vladimir Serdyuk, Vadim Karastelev and Tamara Karasteleva) were found guilty and fined 500 to 1000 rubles. Tamara Karasteleva (or Karastelyova), on of the activists’ leaders, explained that the people were just sharing impressions, making acquaintance and watching photographs, but the judge Vera Abshtyr said that it must be done at home, not at a school. The activists intend to appeal.

BTW, I couldn’t find the name Froda in any of these articles. The Karastelevs couple are known as the leaders of the School of Peace foundation (the web-site was working two days ago but it is down now. For what reason and for how long, I do not know), an organization that promoted tolerance towards ethnic minorities and protects the rights of children from ethnic minorities. They are known for the activity in protection of human rights of Meskhetian Turks, who were removed by Stalin to Uzbekistan, fled from pogroms to Russia in 1989, but were given a cold shoulder here and forced to emigrate to USA. This activity of the School of Peace became the hidden reason for the closure of the organization in 2003.